Exploring a series of over 500 threats to harm from our caseload, one third of the threats to cause reputational harm had been carried out or were in progress at the point of referral for opinion on risk. This was significantly higher than the prevalence of violence in the set, which was only 3.9%.
So are reputation threateners different from those who threaten violence? And do those who carry out their reputational threat differ from those who do not?
The typical reputation threatener presents as markedly different from those who offer violence in our data set.
They are significantly more likely to be female for a start. They are more likely to be threatening in their own name rather than anonymously, and also to know the person they are threatening rather than being a stranger.
The reputation threatener differs in terms of state of mind and background motive too. Although more likely to be anxious – who wouldn’t be, threatening someone you know, perhaps intimately? – they are far less likely to exhibit the anger and disinhibition which typifies the violence threatener.
They are also significantly less likely to be mentally disturbed, and so less likely to articulate amorous fantasies or delusions. Rather, they are more likely to seek justice, money or an apology.
And the reputational threateners in our data set were not out just to shock or upset. They threatened with purpose, with the specific scheme of getting the recipient to bend to their will.
A picture emerges of the typical reputational threatener as more intensely focused on outcome; who is more likely to issue purely reputational threats; to issue fewer threats, which are less frequently couched in invective, and who do not threaten anything and everything, but instead something very specific.
However, when it comes to those who were most likely to act on their threat, it is the atypical reputational threatener who predominates.
In fact, the typical reputational threat issued with the scheme of getting the recipient to comply was negatively associated with being carried through. Rather, it was reputational threats issued for the purpose of shocking and harming, verbally and by threateners who were angry that were most strongly associated with being acted upon.
In other words, reputational threats driven by emotion, rather than those coolly issued to achieve a specific aim were those most likely to be aired publicly.
For the reputational risk adviser, so what?
Apart from indicating that risk factors for threats being carried out are likely to differ between types of threat, this small study suggests that consideration of the manner in which the reputational threatener presents, as well as the purpose, motive, form, content and frequency of their threats can be harnessed to offer an early indication of likely risk management strategy.
At a time when AI and deepfakes are increasingly part of the reputational threat milieu – anyone can harness them and we live immersed in tech, entertainment and advertising industries for which such capability is considered core business and a virtuous skill, so why wouldn’t they be? – it seems worth remembering that they are but the latest symptoms of very old and very human desires and diseases.
There are only a handful of purposes one individual can have in threatening another.
The motives a person might have for intruding on the life of another, and the extent to which state of mind can precipitate and perpetuate that behaviour are well understood.
By comparison, the risk factors attached to the reputational threatener and their threats are only now beginning to be more clearly understood. But there is reason to think progress can be made comparatively quickly.
Because the means of reputational threat delivery has evolved enormously since the poison-pen letter of classical times.
The writer? Not so much.
